


It's Been A Long Time

by intern_at_german_chapterhouse



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Endgame - Fandom, Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bisexual Steve Rogers, Canon Divergence - Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), F/M, M/M, POV Steve Rogers, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-07
Updated: 2020-07-07
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:41:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25128664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/intern_at_german_chapterhouse/pseuds/intern_at_german_chapterhouse
Summary: Steve goes back in time and returns decades later. After living a full life and changing some lives around him.My take on the Endgame-ending no one really liked.I didn't exactly change anything, just rearranged some stuff :)
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Sam Wilson, James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, Peggy Carter & Steve Rogers, Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers & Sam Wilson
Comments: 4
Kudos: 9





	It's Been A Long Time

Steve turned his back on the small house at the end of the road.  
He could still hear the song coming from the kitchen. An old jazz song, he used to know by heart some decades ago.  
Peggy had gotten her dance and Steve his future with a white picket fence and maybe some kids someday in the future.  
Not this Steve though. The one from the '40s, he was in there dancing with Peggy. After the Steve from the 21st century rescued him from the ice.  
It was like he had told Tony years ago (or in 70 years), the one who wanted the whole family life with Peggy went into the ice in the '40s.  
And the older Steve had other plans. Like, get a certain soldier out of Hydra's claws.  
And then he'd have other fights to fight, carrying the shield so that the younger one didn't have to.  
Smiling, the older Steve walked down the road to where he had parked his bike. He looked at the houses around him, just a suburban street filled with houses where normal people lived.  
He got on his bike and drove to the closest SSR base he knew of.  
He had things to do.

  
Steve went home from the funeral and started packing his things. There was nothing left, that kept him there.  
The other Steve and Peggy had both died years ago, peacefully in their sleep only a few weeks apart. Their kids and grand-kids and even two little great-grand-kids had invited him to their funerals and he got to say good-bye to the life he could have had.  
Not that he'd preferred that to the one he had lived.  
The memories started to flood his mind and while turning the ring on his finger, he gave in to them.  
The mission to save Bucky. The two of them reunited and fighting together.  
Steve had used his knowledge of the past to navigate his new present. They'd taken down Hydra before it could reform under SHIELD's eyes.  
He knew that things were just about to get especially messy again, once the Tony Stark from this timeline would build his first suit. But this Tony grew up with a father who had gotten called out by Steve for some of his less favourable character traits.  
And there were the SHIELD agents, Steve and Bucky had trained personally. Agents Fury, May, Coulson, Hill, and Hand.  
And Agent Romanoff who had chosen to stay with SHIELD after the mission led by Clint had freed her and the other girls from the Red Room.  
Steve knew that he wasn't leaving this world on her own and that the people he left were prepared for what was coming. He wasn't needed here anymore.  
He was a widower in his 90's, not even counting the years he'd been in the ice in the other timeline.  
And he had done his best to improve this timeline. He hadn't been able to change everything, but being Captain America helped a lot to get attention for any issue he knew needed it.  
His work was done.  
To be honest, he was so tired, he was pretty sure, he couldn't have tackled anything else even if he'd wanted to.  
So he took the old suitcase from its place on the shelf, put on his suit over his clothes and grabbed a jacket and his shield. The hammer, he had left with SHIELD, for Thor, should he need it. He used the last of the Pym-Particles and with a last look around the house they had lived in together for almost thirty years, Steve left.

  
He reappears at the lake only a few seconds before his younger self departs. He watches Bucky and Sam and Bruce standing there, waiting for him to return.  
He knows he isn't going to.  
So he takes off the suit, puts his jacket on and sits down on the bank by the lake.  
He's exhausted. Not from the time travel, but from everything else. Mostly from the funeral and the mourning.  
So he just looks out over the water. It's absolutely beautiful.  
And they'll find him, eventually.  
Sam is the one who comes over to him. Bucky knew where he went, where he's been. Well, he doesn't know everything, but Sam had no clue.  
"Cap?"  
Steve turns to face Sam, slowly. "Hi, Sam."  
Sam's smiling, although he looks a bit surprised. "So, did something go wrong or did something go right?"  
"Well, after I put the stones back, I thought, maybe I'll try some of that life Tony was telling me to get." Steve is smiling too, memories filling his mind again. The happy ones, the one he'll go back to for the rest of his life.  
"How'd that work out for ya?"  
Steve's smile widens as he thinks about his life in the other timeline. The new friends he got to meet, the old ones he got to keep, the wedding and marriage he hadn't had here, all the things he had found and the things he had lost. And there is only one thing he could say about all of it: "It was beautiful."  
Sam nods. "Good, I'm happy for you. Truly."  
"Thank you," Steve says and means it. He had been hoping that his friends in this timeline wouldn't be mad at him for leaving. He knows he won't be alive for much longer and won't get to live his life with the friends and family he has here.  
"Only thing bumming me out is the fact that I have to live in a world without Captain America."  
Steve's given this a lot of thought, talked it through with Bucky – both Buckys actually – and he knows that his decision is the right one. He made a different decision in the other timeline, simply because the Sam from there was way too young when Steve retired, but he knew that Sam was going to be an amazing Captain America.  
"Oh, that reminds me." He opens the leather casing around the shield. "Try it on."  
Sam's reaction makes Steve smile again. Sam doesn't seem to see it because he turns to Bucky.  
Bucky who knew this was coming.  
Bucky.  
Steve has managed not to look at Bucky since he got back. And he doesn't now either.  
He keeps looking at Sam who turns back to him and takes the shield and puts it on his arm.  
"How does it feel?" Steve doesn't tell him that the shield looks like it was made for Sam. Although he is certain, that this is the right decision, it is still Sam's decision too. He won't force it on him.  
"Like it's Someone else's."  
"It isn't." Steve looks up at Sam and the younger man begins to smile and then sighs.  
"Thank you. I'll do my best."  
Steve knows that he will. He wouldn't expect anything else. "That's why it's yours."  
When they shake hands, Sam seems to notice the ring for the first time. There's a grin on his face as he asks: "You wanna tell me about her?"  
Just the fact that Sam assumes Steve got married to a woman makes him want to laugh out loud. But he decides not to.  
This is his story, his memories. He doesn't feel like sharing them just yet.  
Maybe later.  
Maybe never.  
"No," he says, "no, I don't think I will."  
And the song fills his mind. It's Been A Long Long Time.  
And with his fingers on his ring, turning it once again around his finger, he finally turns to Bucky.  
He looks so familiar and yet so different.  
So much younger and so much more tired than the old man he had to bury only hours ago.  
The Bucky he got to grow old with.  
His Bucky.  
And with a tear in his eyes, he turns back to Sam.  
"You guys take care of each other, okay?"


End file.
